The Religion Thread

[Seth Milner]

Food for thought:

[rstrong]

Policy on Bibles is the same for both schools and prisons. You're welcome to carry one and read one. But those running the school/prison can't force it on students/prisoners, even indirectly by including it in official policy.

In any case, crime rates are at a historic low, dropping along with - since you want to make correlations - religious affiliations.

(Originally from the Sunday Times; the text can be found here.)

"In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies."
[...]
"There is evidence that within the U.S. strong disparities in religious belief versus acceptance of evolution are correlated with similarly varying rates of societal dysfunction, the strongly theistic, anti-evolution south and mid-west having markedly worse homicide, mortality, STD, youth pregnancy, marital and related problems than the northeast where societal conditions, secularization, and acceptance of evolution approach European norms (Aral and Holmes; Beeghley, Doyle, 2002)."

The non-religious make up about 21% of the US population. Meanwhile they make up only 0.209% of the prison population.

In "The New Criminology", Max D. Schlapp and Edward E. Smith say that two generations of statisticians found that the ratio of convicts without religious training is about 1/10 of 1%. W. T. Root, professor of psychology at the Univ. of Pittsburgh, examined 1,916 prisoners and said "Indifference to religion, due to thought, strengthens character," adding that Unitarians, Agnostics, Atheists and Free-Thinkers are absent from penitentiariers or nearly so.

Hope This Helps!

[Seth Milner]

Policy on Bibles is the same for both schools and prisons. You're welcome to carry one and read one.
I'm aware of that. It's a meme; only a meme.

In any case, crime rates are at a historic low,
What rock did you just crawl out from under?

Hope This Helps!
Of course; it did and always should.

[Vrede too]

It's difficult to narrow criminality down to specific genes since it's the interaction of many genes plus environmental influence that matter, and since the same things that can lead to criminality in some can also lead to non-criminal positive non-conformity in others. However, some associations have been made. I wonder if we'll eventually learn that there are congruent genetic bases for criminality and religiosity.

[O Really]

I'm aware of that. It's a meme; only a meme.

Understood, but maybe we could post nonsensical, factually incorrect, and logically deficient memes in their own thread. Just call it "Silly Memes" and everybody can laugh or ignore it at will. Posting a meme under your name in a topic thread does tend to imply it is your thought or something you agree with. Or maybe it is and you do, who knows?

[Vrede too]

In case anyone is wondering:

Obviously I strongly disagree with Seth Milner on some things. I think that some of his more odious claims can only be mocked, and I have no trouble labelling him based on his opinions. Or on all his "memes" that exclusively back the worst of Tea Party claims.

Still, I'm very uncomfortable with creating whole threads naming a forum member specifically to mock them. I move that this thread be removed.

Sorry, you are correct. I was just trying to make a funny based on O Really's post. I believe that you have the "power" still, and I can't delete my post or the thread now that you've replied. You may delete the thread with my "blessing" . If you don't have the "power", anyone else may do so.

[Seth Milner]

I'm aware of that. It's a meme; only a meme.

Understood, but maybe we could post nonsensical, factually incorrect, and logically deficient memes in their own thread. Just call it "Silly Memes" and everybody can laugh or ignore it at will.
That is where you all fail miserably. Life is too short to walk around with your shorts stuck in your ass all the time. You all take this political and politically-charged bullshit too damn seriously. Hells bells, you're not going to live forever; take time to see the humorous and ridiculous side of today's issues. As for me, I've lived to see so much hate, indifference, intolerance, lack of discipline and other bullshit, I've become mostly immune for any compassion towards most issues of today. I don't get my ass outta whack over a meme, silly cartoon, or even the ridicule I attract here.

Posting a meme under your name in a topic thread does tend to imply it is your thought or something you agree with.
Or maybe it is and you do, who knows?
You all should know enough about me by my postings to know that what I post is usually to ridicule either the poster personally, or the subject he's posting. (the politically-correct call that trolling) You also should know the difference between a serious post and one posted in humor.

[Seth Milner]

In case anyone is wondering:

Obviously I strongly disagree with Seth Milner on some things. I think that some of his more odious claims can only be mocked, and I have no trouble labelling him based on his opinions. Or on all his "memes" that exclusively back the worst of Tea Party claims.

Still, I'm very uncomfortable with creating whole threads naming a forum member specifically to mock them. I move that this thread be removed.

Sorry, you are correct. I was just trying to make a funny based on O Really's post. I believe that you have the "power" still, and I can't delete my post or the thread now that you've replied. You may delete the thread with my "blessing" . If you don't have the "power", anyone else may do so.

I saw the title, "Silly Memes posted by Seth Milner" but when I clicked on it, it was already gone.
(See the above post in response to O Really's reply to the meme)

The post was deleted so quickly, it proves what I suspected; that rstrong is a moderator; or Vrede wrote "I can't delete my post or the thread " to make it appear he's not a moderator; not that I really care, just curious because the Forum Team lists only Bannination's name.

RANK ADMINISTRATORS PRIMARY GROUP MODERATOR
Commander bannination Administrators All forums

MODERATORS
No members found for this search criterion.

[Vrede too]

Since it was likely related to my faux pas, I opened Seth Milner's post when notified of it.

My now deleted post/thread only quoted and linked the above original "meme" exchange between Seth Milner and O Really, no editorializing.

I was a moderator, but voluntarily gave it up when I became such a lightning rod and was being stalked in real life. Seth Milner's suspicions that I'm still a moderator, not to mention his delusion that he's consequential enough to be worth lying to, tell us more about his sleazy immorality than it does about my integrity.

Of course rstrong is a moderator, that why his edits of typos that Seth Milner whines about, which rstrong always has the integrity to admit doing, don't show edit stamps. Pay attention. It's not like it's a secret, that's just paranoid Seth Milner imagining that others are as creepy as he is. banni long ago made several of us moderators, including con Wneglia, largely so that we could deal with spam when he wasn't around. That I know of no one has ever abused the "power". banni is a good judge of character.

That said, it could have been someone besides rstrong that deleted the thread since I gave any moderator my okay to do so.

[rstrong]

The post was deleted so quickly, it proves what I suspected; that rstrong is a moderator;

I've been given limited moderator powers in the General Discussion forum.

Full disclosure: I've used them in following ways:

- Cancelling Russian spam before they appear. These come from non-members, so I get a message asking to approve/cancel them. I don't have this ability in the Conservative Forum, which is why spam tends to remain there. Besides, conservatives tend to be Putin fans these days.

- Clicking "edit" on someone else's post so that I can see a YouTube window. Otherwise I don't see it and can only guess that it's there. I've done that three or four times, but not recently. (And now I always include a link with YouTube videos.)

- Accidently clicking "edit" instead of "reply" and wrecking someone's post. I'm pretty sure I've only done this once, a couple years ago.

- Moderation. This was the first time I've deleted a post let alone a thread. I did it with the agreement of everyone else (one person) in the thread. Otherwise I would leave it to bannination's discretion.

The only cases I can think of where I would delete a post without checking with everyone first, is if someone posted something illegal or posted someone's personal information. (The former might be best left to me since I'm in another country. It's now established that in America taking down an illegal post or clearing your cache after inadvertently viewing it, could get you charged with destroying evidence.)

[Vrede too]

... - Accidently clicking "edit" instead of "reply" and wrecking someone's post. I'm pretty sure I've only done this once, a couple years ago....

I did that a bunch of times and still sometimes do it to my own posts when quoting them. I have to back arrow to find the original and restore it, which is a real pain since the formatting has to be recreated from scratch.

[rstrong]

...don't show edit stamps.

Oh. I didn't know about the lack of those being connected to moderator privileges. Should I manually include them when I edit a typo or add a citation?

Edit: Reworded sentence 2 for clarity.

[Vrede too]

Yeah, it's part of the moderator package. When I was a moderator I would have been fine without it.

Up to you. I always did if someone had relevantly replied (not if my flub had gone unnoticed ), but your saying so in subsequent posts accomplishes the same thing.

If it's not been remarked on, I don't think there's any ethical imperative here. It's just delayed proofreading and no one will care whether you've done so.

[Vrede too]

Since it was likely related to my faux pas, I opened Seth Milner's post when notified of it....

Your new (?) loooozer avatar fits, good one.

NFL Power Rankings

22. Washington ******** (0-2, Last week: 19)
Kirk Cousins has had a really weird career, hasn’t he? He went from turnover machine to the hottest quarterback in football for a half-season, then maybe back to turnover machine? Being 0-2 with two home losses is a really bad way to start a season, and the anonymous locker room sniping at Cousins is just awful (Charles Robinson has more on that here).

Here's a metaphor for Seth Milner's "nonsensical, factually incorrect, and logically deficient memes":


********'s QB Kirk Cousins Throws Awful End Zone INT by Barry Church with Safety

Vs. Dallas! Mo shifted, DC was ahead then lost.

[Seth Milner]

You're really struggling with my "I really don't care" remark, aren't you?

I was wondering how long it would take you to get your bowels 'roused over my avatar! I chose it because I knew you are oh so offended by it's usage in the sports world. Take two ex-lax and all will improve by tomorrow; I'm not really that big a fan of Washington; (sports or politics) :violent:

[rstrong]

You're really struggling with my "I really don't care" remark, aren't you?

Given that you're compelled to respond, it's good that you two can share the struggle together!

:angel4:

[Vrede too]

I ignored your "not that I really care" (you can't even quote yourself correctly) given that it was in the middle of a post about your caring, and haven't referred one way or another to your caring or not since. Seth Milner fails comprehension, again.

I didn't express any offense over the avatar, I merely pointed out that it fits a looozer. Seth Milner fails English, again.

[Seth Milner]

You're really struggling with my "I really don't care" remark, aren't you?

Given that you're compelled to respond, it's good that you two can share the struggle together!
:angel4:

I ignored your "not that I really care" (you can't even quote yourself correctly) given that it was in the middle of a post about your caring, and haven't referred one way or another to your caring or not since. Seth Milner fails comprehension, again.®

I didn't express any offense over the avatar, I merely pointed out that it fits a looozer. Seth Milner fails English, again.®

You ignored me?? You didn't express any offense?? Damn! You must've had a bowel movement this morning!

[Seth Milner]

You all should know enough about me by my postings to know that what I post is usually to ridicule either the poster personally, or the subject he's posting. (the politically-correct call that trolling) You also should know the difference between a serious post and one posted in humor.

I failed to mention that the majority of my posts are intended to be good-natured in content, whether they actually dealt with the subject matter or not. Despite the fact that the membership of this forum is scraping the bottom of the barrel, it is the one where I can keep up with all six of you.

Maybe I'll drop the name of this forum around the Internet and a few social media sites; we need to keep Vrede in his usual run-'em-off form you know.

[Vrede too]

QUIZ: Can You Pass World Religion 101?

Your Score: 87%
Quiz Nirvana
You are particularly enlightened about world religions.

It's kind of a subversive quiz. One sees the folly of individual religions when looking at the differing beliefs of many religions.